Friday, May 6, 2011

So yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, which of course is Spanish for "drink as much tequila as possible." With that considered I'd been planning on going to this event for a few weeks now, that was until the guys from Rolling Stone Magazine threw a wrench in my plans. They too had a big show on Cinco de Mayo, at the Highline Ballroom, complete with performances by the Cold War Kids! I didn't find out about the show until a couple days before, not like that really would have helped me out much. In the end I decided to go with my gut (and 1800 Tequila) and went to Good Units at Hudson Hotel.

Apparently Hudson Hotel is a great place to drink tequila, considering the fact that less than 2 weeks ago I was downstairs in the basement for a Jose Cuervo event. It was done so well with such awesome decor and such, that I thought that the guys from 1800 sure did have a tough act to follow. They did a very good job though. The layout was awesome, with the upstairs balcony area playing the role of a museum, with displays built to the new limited edition bottles that had Mexican wrestlers on them. They were very well done. There were flyers everywhere, with the specialty cocktails you could order on them, not to mention pictures and huge murals of all these different Mexican wrestlers. Downstairs on the floor level there were bleachers set up for people to sit and watch the show (or the wrestling match, which they also had) that was set up inside a wrestling ring! And the tequila flowed from about 8:30PM to after 1AM, which really is far more tequila that you need, but it's Cinco de Mayo only once a year, thankfully.

The first to perform were a band my friend had been going on and on about, Davila 666. These guys are a punk rock group from Puerto Rico, so really Cinco de Mayo may not actually be their thing, but they rocked the show anyways. Their guitar riffs and drum combos are actually rather simple, but they rock hard, and know the sound their trying to deliver and do it well. I thought they were awesome, all of their stuff is high energy, even their "slower" stuff, and everyone was rocking out. Did I mention they sing in Spanish, because they do. If you think it's hard understanding rock music in English, it's pretty close to incomprehensible in Spanish (that is if you don't speak Spanish). But their music is fun, a throwback to the 90s and early 2000s of that rock/punk fusion. These guys were awesome and put on a great show, even under the confinements of a wrestling ring.

The next act in the ring was Silverio, a Mexican ring announcer, who brought out a couple of Luchadores to wrestle each other. It was pretty entertaining all things considered. I'm not an expert on Mexican wrestling but people were throwing their drinks at the guys. Is that what people do at these matches? At one point a dude hit one of the wrestlers with a drink and the guy who got hit in the ring got mad, and climbed out of the ring! He ended up with a guy over his shoulder, like he was going to body slam him or something! Then he and the other wrestler just left the entire area with the guy and the DJ came back on! It was kind of weird, and hopefully staged...

The last performer up is a DJ/producer by the name of Chico Sonido. This guy is known as the 'Electro Cumbia Kid', clearly because he plays Cumbia with electro beats behind it. The sound becomes a very high paced yet inherently tropical sound that's very easy to dance to. Chico himself couldn't just stand there and was dancing around the ring like a crazy person. At this point I was back upstairs on the balcony section having a seat and just listening to the songs. After a bit I decided to get up and take a look at Chico to see if he was still going crazy, and he was: he had stripped down to only his underwear (after arriving in the ring in basically a suit) and was dancing around some more! I thought he was on drugs when he first started dancing, by this point I was sure of it. I then went back to sit down. After another little while I decided to go against my better judgement, get up AGAIN and see what he was doing. I thought, please God don't like this guy be naked! By this point he was standing on top of the table where his mixer was, his underwear half on-half off, and he was stomping on his sampler with his shoes still on (which he of course didn't remove)! This guy is crazy and a crazy performer, but if you're into this kind of music I would say you'd be into him, he was a bit much for me though.

The event went off without a hitch though. I heard there were a couple of fights but when you give a bunch of people 4+ hours of tequila, a fight or two is an occupational hazard I think. Vice Magazine (the co-party throwers with 1800 Tequila) are masters of throwing events and only added to their legend with their Cinco de Mayo extravaganza. I'm not sure if I will be drinking that much tequila for a while though, I suppose it's good that Cinco de Mayo 2012 is quite some time from now!